To recap Hirshman to date: Back in April, she wrote that focusing on the abusers isn't nearly good enough: we had to start embarrassing the victims.

Shouldn't we be focusing on the abusers? Well, not exactly. Old-style feminism would say "the personal is the political," as long-time columnist Katha Pollitt put it in her own tale of personal sexual betrayal, Learning To Drive: And Other Life Stories. A social movement that passed political judgment on a subject as intimate as domestic violence may be tough on the victim, but, as Pollitt concluded, "at least it offered a perspective."

According to Hirshman, it was feminists' duty to ask individual victims how it is they could be so stupid and anti-feminist so as to stay with an abuser, all but ignoring the well-documented psychological effects of abusive relationships.

When called out on on that steaming pile of victim-shaming bullshit that in no way actually helps women leave abusers, Hirshman got all defensive.

I implied that women are natural victims, and I was just using battered women as a battering ram against "choice" feminism. If there's one take-away message in my piece, it's that women are not natural victims. Which means there must be a way to reduce or arrest battering. Silent sheltering and waiting isn't enough-that leaves between 600,000 and 2,000,000 women battered right now.

Now, no feminist — choice or otherwise — would call women "natural" victims. What we can and have pointed out is that there is a vast body of research into how some women do become victims and what methods are useful for helping them exit abusive relationships and, moreover, that the blame for the abuse should fall squarely upon the abuser and not his victim. We also suggested that stopping abuse means providing means for women to exit relationships and better means of detection, prosecution and education for men about abuse. We just disagree that shaming women who are being abused is in any way, shape or form helpful to the end goal of helping women exit abusive relationships, what with one of the major causes of abused women's isolation being the shame they feel for either bringing the abuse upon themselves or being unable emotionally to leave.

Obviously, Hirshman still isn't keen to hear that part of any explanation. Her apparent takeaway from the discussion is that "choice" feminists believe women choose of their own volition to stay in abusive relationships and we should support them in their decisions. And so she's so very surprised that us "choice" feminists aren't attacking President Obama for his NAACP speech in which he encouraged African-American men and women to raise their children to work hard and do well in school, rather than succumbing to circumstances that might make them believe they can't succeed. (It's a little like Hirshman forgot Obama's speech on the same topic last June, actually).

In fact, because so little has been written by particularly white, feminist commentators (who, I don't know, might not feel quite right criticizing a speech by the first African-American President to African-Americans about raising African-American children for some odd reason), Hirshman thinks Obama's getting a pass in a way she wasn't.

Are women different from African-Americans when it comes to writing their own destiny, as the president powerfully expressed it? Apparently.

In other words, Obama suggesting to African-American parents that they encourage their children to dream of being scientists is exactly the same as suggesting that feminists try to shame women out of abusive relationships by telling them that it's their fault (and a betrayal of feminism) for staying.

It is difficult to imagine the same writers suggesting that President Obama is interfering with the freedom of choice of black parents when he tells them to prepare their children to be scientists rather than rappers.

If anything, the argument for leaving an abuser should be an easier one to make, no? But a few months ago, after reviewing Leslie Morgan Steiner's memoir of her four years as a victim of domestic abuse, I took a pounding for asking: Why didn't she leave?

Now, again, not a single feminist who disagreed with Hirshman argued that women should stay with abusers because it's their "choice" or that feminists shouldn't do what they can to reduce domestic violence, punish abusers and engage in productive measures to help women leave abusive situations. What we all collectively argued is that just asking women why they stayed or didn't leave is asking a woman suffering from psychological trauma to explain or justify themselves isn't fucking helpful to the end goal of enabling them to leave. But, obviously, Linda Hirshman knows better than silly "research" and we're all just obsessed with "choice."

Hirshman, though, has an explanation for her behavior.

[Her question was] Maybe not accusatory, but yes, the question is and was intended to be judgmental.

In other words, Linda Hirshman feels entitled to sit in judgment of victims of domestic violence. She wants to judge victims of domestic violence — in the same way that she judges sexual assault victims — because, like many people, she thinks herself immune. Like most people who've never been the victim of a crime — particularly a violent crime — she believes the world is a rational ordered place where if you just do the "right" thing, nothing bad will happen to you. Linda Hirshman lives in a fantasy world in which just being a good enough feminist protects you from domestic violence, or infidelity or sexual assault, because women aren't "natural victims." The problem is that crime isn't natural — no one is a "natural" victim.

Hirshman ends her piece with an appeal to the school of feminism that has declared the personal, political.

True, some of the oppression of women is imposed in private, emotional relationships, as opposed to on a bridge in Selma, Ala. or at a lousy crumbling inner-city school. But such manipulative emotional relationships do involve political oppression, just like the political oppression that produces those awful schools and the lack of job prospects upon graduation. That's what the old feminist insight "the personal is the political" was intended to illuminate.

Ah, let's do get back to the oppression Olympics! Jim Crow laws are just like individual cases of domestic violence! It's good to know that Hirshman can so reliably drive that wedge down in between white feminists and womanists of color again. And, again: how does what Hirshman is saying actually help individual victims of domestic violence? That the personal (for instance: rape, domestic violence, wage discrimination or freedom of sexual expression) is political is not an anathema to so-called "choice" feminism; the idea that the political should inevitably trump the expression of the personal, including the ability to use empathy and other, non-political tools to help enable women to exit abusive relationships, is.

In science Linda Hirshman probably should — but likely won't — look at, social scientists Jennifer Hardesty and Lyndal Khaw at the University of Illinois have identified the 5 discrete stages women go through when trying to distance themselves from an abusive relationship. Why is that important?

"Leaving a relationship is much more complex than just deciding to change, and it involves more than a woman's prioritizing her safety. Other actors are involved. The abuser makes decisions that affect a woman's movement through the stages. And children can be a powerful influence in motivating a woman to get out of a relationship and in pulling her back in," Hardesty said.

In other words, it's not just telling someone they need to get out: quite often, they know, but there are also reasons they see to stay. She adds:

"Discouraged friends and family members have to learn to view leaving as a process and realize that there's little they can say to speed it along. It's important for them to reinforce the risks the woman is facing by asking such questions as 'Has he become more abusive? Does he have a gun?'

"When talking to an abused friend or family member, you should always emphasize safety, but for your own sanity, you should realize that leaving is a process and she has to work her way through it herself," she said.

In other words: asking "Why don't you just leave?" does nothing to contribute to the process of emotional and physical disentanglement that a woman has to go through in order to get out, including finding shelter and the financial wherewithal to leave as she is emotionally disengaging. "Tough love" doesn't help most women who find themselves in abusive relationships, as personally and politically satisfying as Linda Hirshman might find it to dish out.

Talking Tough Love [double x]
Crazy Love, Crazy Choices [Slate]
Sheltering Women: Linda Hirshman Responds to Hilzoy [Slate]
For Abused Women, Leaving Is A Complex And Confusing Process [EurekAlert]

Related: Obama's Father's Day Speech Urges Black Fathers To Be More Engaged In Raising Their Children [Huffington Post]

Earlier: Writer Implies We Can Collectively Guilt Rihanna Into Leaving Chris
Former Victim Counselor Takes On Assumptions That Leaving Abusers Is Easy
Linda Hirshman Won't Let Domestic Abuse Victims Off The Hook
Who You Calling A Bad Feminist?

[In case you're wondering, the image of Linda Hirshman in a crown is her own head shot at double x]

While faux-marriages are nothing new (Green Card, anyone?), apparently recently there's been a huge upswing in the number of Eastern European immigrants using New York's expat community to contract "delovoy brak," or "business marriages." The piece in the Post reports that in one week, a Russian-language weekly ran 34 ads by people openly seeking the illegal arrangement. (That pic ran with one of the ads, and is typical.)

When a reporter contacted a marriage broker, he was told a marriage would run him about $30 grand, of which $25,000 would go to the "wife," to be paid in full after a successful interview with immigration. And while immigration officials quoted in the article claim they're cracking down hard, they admit sham marriages can be hard to prove - and several who've engaged in them say, for their part, that the interview's a breeze. Although the issue's been on lawmakers' radars for more than 20 years, few provisions and little legislation has ever passed, and it's apparently regarded as a low priority, a victimless crime that doesn't call for much attention - although many "legitimate" couples do claim that the practice subjects them to humiliating and unfair scrutiny.

None of this is exactly shocking. Nor is the fact that these situations are ripe for exploitation, one imagines particularly for the women involved. What was, rather, is the insouciance with which the quoted "grooms" discuss the business. Says one guy, a Ukrainian immigrant who has U.S. citizenship, "I get calls asking me to marry one of these girls every other week...It's easy money, and the girls are really hot."

Then there's a sidebar, "I was taken for a bride." While the headline implies that the man in question, "Ivan," was duped by a goldigger, his quotes tell a rather different story. While it's true that some men - lonely, naive - are indeed "duped" for money when they think they're involved in a romance, this is clearly a case in which the guy knew exactly what he was doing - and that he's fairly typical of the "legalizer" in these situations.

Her name was Yelena. She was really hot, in her 20s.She had come over on a student visa. We went over the figures that night at dinner. The next week, we went to City Hall. I let her move in with me. I wanted to be real secure with this. I didn't want to get arrested. I actually wanted to be with her. I was attracted to her. Everything I told her to do, she did. I would scare her on purpose. I would say, "If you don't do so and so, I am going to report you."

Ivan says that Yelena was "shoplifting like crazy," was "cheating on him," stole from him, and "was probably an escort" to boot. She served him with divorce papers while he was in the hospital recovering from an injury. Nevertheless, despite seeming to feel he was ill-used, he ends by saying, "Who knows? I might do it again."

What's especially weird about his account is the matter-of-factness of tone, the expectation that the two would try to use each other for whatever they could, and the casual way he admits to blackmailing her for, what? Sexual favors? One can only assume. And this story, while typical, is hardly as bad as it gets: rates of domestic abuse in green-card marriages are extremely high, and as happy-ending "mail-order bride" Lera Loeb told Glamour, "In Ukraine the potential dangers of the so-called mail-order bride industry are not as well known as they are in America." Perhaps a woman who is, unlike a "mail-order," already living in America has a bit more of a support network than someone who is completely on her own, but as this story demonstrates, she's still in a uniquely vulnerable position, and completely at the mercy of those who have some leverage over her, to say nothing of money and power. In such a situation, two years can be a long time. It's also true that, given the high rates of domestic abuse in many of the same Eastern European countries, in these arrangements there might be a tacit communal blind eye turned on such abuse. As in any unregulated sphere, in short, the potential for institutionalized abuse is very, very high. And what's worse, it's what people on both sides have come to take for granted. Even if everyone involved ends up a victim of sorts - and even if it's what they sign on for - this is not a situation that anyone should be taking lightly.

FROM RUSSIA WITH $$ [New York Post]
I WAS TAKEN FOR A BRIDE [New York Post]
Hello, I Love You, Won't You Tell Me Your Name: Inside The Green Card Marriage Phenomenon [Center for Immigration Studies]
Yes, This Woman Is A "Mail-Order Bride" [Glamour]
Mail Order Brides And The Abuse Of Immigrant Women [No Status Quo]

Stop Violence Against Women [StopVAW]

Related: Mail-Order Bride Finds Love; Hopefully No Others Read This

In an interview with Anthem magazine, stylist B. Akerlund (wife of Jonas) — who is Lady GaGa's "first official stylist," talks about the intricate, bizarre and, frankly, gorgeous ensembles created for "Paparazzi."

The beginning of the video shows Ms. GaGa in a torrid embrace with a man, who ends up manipulating, dominating and manhandling her — trying to make sure their kisses are snapped by a hidden photographer — and he eventually throws her over a balcony. After her fall, GaGa returns home in a stylish neckbrace and wheelchair. B. Akerlund explains:

Gaga called me and said she wanted to be in a wheel chair. She wanted me to design it and not the prop department. I took it upon myself to drive to East L.A. and exchange the wheels for some low rider ones. I ordered some Gucci fabric and handed it over to my genius friend/designer Michael Schmidt so he could embellish it with Swarovski crystals. Originally, we made a metal logo that read "Gaga" on the wheels, but she disliked the font and we ended up exchanging it for the Chanel logo.

Once out of the wheelchair, GaGa wears a metal corset and walks with crutches.

B Akerlund says:

This is a very famous Thierry Mugler robot that was my biggest dream for GaGa. We made it happen and it arrived in a huge metal box with padlocks on it-very exciting! It's not the most comfortable thing to wear and very cold on the body, but a true work of art. The crutches were custom-made by Michael Schmidt with Swarovski chain and punk studs.

While the image is reminiscent of some famous Helmut Newton photographs —

— especially the two above, from a 1995 Vogue spread titled "The Empowered Woman" — do they make some kind of statement? A critique on literal fashion victims? A comment on the idea that women draw strength from what they wear? Can a victim or survivor find solace in style?

Throughout the video, we see flashes — very quick scenes — of dead (murdered?) women. Is the abusive boyfriend to blame? Later in the video, GaGa is back with man who hurt her, and he's reading a magazine which proclaims her to be "the new it girl." As though her ordeal just made her more famous. But GaGa has a ringful of poison, which she slips into his drink. He promptly dies. In the media blitz which follows, a newspaper headline reads, "We Love Her Again."

Yes, it's just a video. But in a time when the public was privy to a photograph of Rihanna's battered face and intimate details of Britney's breakdowns, isn't it interesting to see the idea of a strong — yet hurt — woman? And what if the "man" in the video is actually a stand-in for fame itself, and what it does to women?

B. Akerlund [Anthem Magazine]
Lady Gaga - Paparazzi [You Tube]

First off, let me just say, having examined the pictures, I'm not buying. None of the nude pictures reveal her face (or her tattoos), the physical proportions are off and the pictures that do include her face have it partially shadowed. Furthermore, the decor in the non-nude pictures that look the most like her doesn't match that in the photos without a face, and the layout of the rooms in the two photographs are strikingly different.

That said, what's more striking than the fact that the pictures aren't definitively Rihanna is the timing. For the first time since Chris Brown reportedly beat the shit out of her, Rihanna has been publicly out and about: She made two appearances in New York this week, looking beautiful, poised and anything but miserable. And then: these pictures. It certainly looks to me like someone - perhaps a certain woman beating turdmuffin we all know and hate - is trying to shame her back indoors, away from the cameras and out of the spotlight. I hope it doesn't work. But here's the thing: even if they're not real, some damage has already been done; how is Rihanna supposed to "prove" that she doesn't appear in these snapshots if certain unquestioning and influential bloggers are saying she does?

As today's LA Times reports, Dalal wrote her brother, asking for help after being raped by the guards, who apparently let her brother visit without questioning him in order to allow him to kill her and save them from getting in trouble. It worked, sort of.

The case might have ended there were it not for the morgue employee, who was determined to see those responsible held to account.

At the employee's insistence, lab workers using freshly acquired DNA-testing equipment drew a sample from the fetus. The prison guards were ordered to submit DNA samples and did so, apparently unaware of the sophistication of the morgue equipment and the people trained to use it.

"They thought we were incapable of figuring it out," said the morgue employee.

The DNA results showed that the father of the unborn baby was a police lieutenant colonel who reportedly supervised guards at the prison.

Of course, in America the guards would have been guilty of rape even if the sex had been "consensual" because our laws delineate that prisoners cannot consent — and, if I recall correctly, we sort of wrote Iraqi laws after we took over the country. But, naturally, that isn't how it worked out for either the brother or the prison guards.

Yet other accounts say the matter was settled through tribal justice. The clan of the accused lieutenant colonel paid the woman's family to drop charges, said some people in the area who are familiar with the case but fearful of discussing it openly.

The morgue worker said those involved in the lab testing understood that all three of the police officers were freed.

"I heard the dispute was solved by a tribal ransom," the employee said.

"The issue bothers me a lot. I'm doing my job, and the bad guys are getting back on the street."

There are conflicting reports on the brother's status. Some say he was jailed for killing his sister. Others say he was freed as part of the tribal deal.

The official story?

According to a judge in the Tikrit court, the lieutenant colonel implicated by DNA and a police captain also accused in the case were arrested on rape charges but then released for lack of evidence. The judge said a third defendant, a police lieutenant, remained in custody. (It is not uncommon in Iraq for police officers to serve as prison guards and supervisors.)

Another Tikrit court official said the lieutenant colonel and captain remained in custody but were transferred from Tikrit to Baghdad.

Workers at the morgue say that sexual and domestic violence is up in Iraq, as it seems like many men find it easier to kill than divorce their wives. Some people say the situation for women in Iraq is worse than before the start of the war (and the subsequent American-led revisions of the legal codes).

"It's a lot worse now," said Ibtisam Hamody Azzawi, a former engineer who runs a small aid organization for abused women from her home in Baghdad.

"Our society witnessed so much war, and this is reflected in the domestic abuse situation.

Team America, World Police.

In Iraq, A Story Of Rape, Shame And 'Honor Killing' [LA Times]

Though anchor Chris Cuomo points out that the leading cause of injury for women is domestic violence, advertising executive Jerry Della Femina doesn't think we should actually have to watch a man kicking Knightley in the PSA. "Couldn't they just show his face as he's kicking? No you had to see it," said Femina. He goes on to suggest that the people who made the ad just wanted to win an award, adding, "I don't think it's going to help anybody." Clip at left.

Earlier: Keira Knightley Beaten In Domestic Violence Ad

In the video at left, Knightley leaves the set of a movie she is working on and drives home to her apartment. She discovers her boyfriend has already broken a mirror and there is blood on the floor. He asks Knightley about kissing her co-star on the set and throws a towel in her face. She says that wasn't in the script, looks at the camera and asks to cut. He knocks her to the ground and kicks her repeatedly as the camera pulls back to show that they are actually on a set. The final screen says, "Isn't it time someone called cut?"

The ad breaks many of the stereotypes about victims of domestic violence by having Knightley play a character like herself - a young, glamorous film actress - rather than a meek housewife. The ad is obviously inspired by Rihanna, and tries to get across the message that even a woman who is confident and successful may be experiencing abuse at home.

"I wanted to take part in this advert for Women's Aid because while domestic violence exists in every section of society we rarely hear about it," said Knightley. "Domestic violence affects one in four women at some point in their lifetime and kills two women every week." The ad was directed by Joe Wright, who directed Knightley in Atonement and Pride and Prejudice. Both were not paid for the ad, which is scheduled begin appearing this month on TV and in theaters only in the U.K. The ad agency is still negotiating with the group that clears ads for TV broadcast. The creators are campaigning to keep the graphic images of the beating in the ad, but they may be forced to edit it down for TV.

Keira Knightley Stars In Ad Campaign Against Domestic Violence [The Guardian]

In the video at left, actors depict what happened inside Chris Brown's car as the police report is read in a voiceover (interestingly both "Chris" and "Rihanna" are white). Last week the group began offering free bracelets on their website to promote dating abuse awareness by "wearing the statistics." The bracelets come in packs of three: one blue, two black to represent that one in three teens are abused in a relationship. The group reports that they've had 25,000 requests for the bracelets so far. [DoSomething.org]

• One woman's request for police to search her ex-boyfriend's laptop for child porn horribly backfired when they found two pictures of her engaged in illicit acts with a dog. She has been charged with two felony bestiality counts. • A 43-year-old Muslim cleric from Indonesia has been detained on suspicion of violating the child protection law after he publicly married a 12-year-old girl. • A new study shows that black girls are 50% more likely to suffer from bulimia than white girls. • Nudists apparently have a solution to the teen pregnancy problem, and it (obviously) involves being naked. • An awesome 78-year-old woman named Doris Henion helped police catch a serial robber after he threatened her at gunpoint. • New trend in broadcast journalism: female reporters! Apparently, more stations are hiring young women in attempts to improve their ratings. • The Catholic Church is pissed at Spain because of recent plans to loosen legal restrictions on abortion. The Church has launched a campaign to stop the government from approving the changes. • A new ad campaign in New Mexico seek to target female drunk drivers. • Netflix has become a sponsor of Women in Film's Finishing Fund, an organization that gives money to women who are just a little bit short of completing their movies. • The U.K. has just approved Azzalure, a French, Botox-like drug, for sale in Britain. • Many Israeli women claim "religious modesty" as a reason for avoiding military duty, but the Israeli Army isn't buying it. They have started a surveillance program to catch female "draft-dodgers". • Mukhtar Mai, a Pakistani rape victim-turned-advocate, has married. The wedding was a simple ceremony in her hometown. Congrats! • A new study from the University of Illinois has found that co-parenting with a violent ex is possible, but only if the violence was "situational" rather than "intimate terrorism." • Employers in Denmark have begun the process of compensating female workers who developed breast cancer after working night shifts. • 

In the clip at left, Robin Givens, who was physically abused by Mike Tyson, and Denise Brown, sister of Nicole Brown Simpson, talked about how labeling a violent incident as "domestic abuse" makes some people take the attack less seriously because they assume the victim did something to provoke the attacker. Victor Rivers, who saw his mother being abused as a child, says that the way to end domestic violence may be to get men involved. "There is still this misconception that domestic violence is a woman's issue," says Rivers. "It needs to be everyone's issue." You can watch the rest of the discussion here.

Fairstein writes:

Nicole Brown was 18 years old in 1977, when she started dating the famous athlete who would take her life less than 20 years later. Shortly after their relationship began, Nicole documented the first incident of physical abuse by her lover. O.J. Simpson's charm and good looks, his celebrity endorsements, and his dazzling smile also allowed others-relatives and friends among them-to overlook the escalating violence throughout the couple's courtship and marriage.

She adds:

Like most victims of intimate partner violence, Nicole Brown called 911 to report her attacks more than eight times before she successfully separated from her husband. Police officers responded to her home on those occasions, sometimes making formal reports of their visits and often-when Nicole herself declined to press charges-left without making any record. At no point did anyone in her family or in law enforcement effect a successful intervention. O.J. Simpson was never arrested for assault, never forced to acknowledge the injury he caused his wife. He was never held accountable for any of the violence he perpetrated against Nicole.

While her point is understandable, by bringing up a decades-old celebrity-oriented case (which may not mean much to Rihanna or others her age), Fairstein makes dying at the hands of a "loving" man seem like a fluke. Isn't it more important to know that 1,232 women are killed each year by an intimate partner? It's not just something that happens every once in a while. It happens all the time. The American Institute on Domestic Violence reports that 5.3 million women are abused each year. Shouldn't we focus on the here and now, that this is happening every day, and not just a case from 1994?

Meanwhile, Raina Kelley has a piece for Newsweek in which she debunks the many myths surrounding domestic violence. "Any discussion of domestic violence should not revolve around what the couple may have been arguing about," she writes. "There isn't a verbal argument that should "spark" or "provoke" an attack of the kind that leaves one person with wounds that require medical attention." Kelley also warns against calling what Chris Brown did "a mistake."

People leave the oven on or fry turkeys in the garage and burn their house down. One may even accidentally step on the gas instead of the brake and run over the family cat. Mistakes resulting in tragic consequences happen all the time. But one cannot mistakenly beat someone up. You do not accidentally give someone black eyes, a broken nose and a split lip.

Of course, what really needs more attention and focus is the psychology of a woman who stays with someone who has hit her. Kelley urges: "Understand that those who are abused do not stay with their abusers because they want to be beaten again, or because they are really at fault; it's usually because they feel trapped and guilty." And Fairstein echoes this sentiment, noting: "Some women capable of supporting themselves tell us that they love the offender so deeply that they are unable to separate, believing that his behavior will change, or that they did something to provoke the attack and bring it on themselves." Yet, the most recent comment on Fairstein's Daily Beast essay? From "sonofloud," who comments on Rihanna: "If she's stupid enough to stay with someone who beats her, she has no one to blame but herself."

Next Time, He'll Kill You [The Daily Beast]
Domestic Abuse Myths [Newsweek]

Steiner is brave to admit her naiveté when it comes to domestic violence, though it is certainly troubling that she thought it couldn't happen to her because she was affluent and smart. When asked if she saw herself as vulnerable, she replies:

A lot of people assume that I must have had really low self-esteem at the time, but it wasn't that. In some ways, I was too confident. I had just graduated from Harvard, which some people thought was a big deal, and I had a great job at Seventeen magazine and a New York apartment and I was meeting men everywhere. I was on top of the world. When I met my future husband, he told me about his very abusive childhood, and I never really doubted that I could help him. I was very naive in that way. I didn't realize what kind of psychological problems this kind of history could create. He was my first love, and I threw myself into loving him unconditionally.

Steiner's situation was incredibly sad, and her statements offer a clear view of the psychology and thoughts women in domestic violence scenarios often have. For instance, she talks about keeping the abuse a secret from her friends:

With most people, I would work to hide it … I also think I knew that the minute I told people, the jig would be up. I would have to leave the relationship, and I was not ready to do that.

In addition, when Newsweek asks: Did you ever blame yourself for what was happening? Steiner reponds:

I didn't blame myself for him being abusive, and I never felt like I deserved to be hit. But I blame myself for staying. It would have been easier if I had told people the first time it happened. But I didn't. By waiting until it had happened 20 or 30 times, I was afraid everyone would think I was pathetic that I let this go on for so long.

Some people might find it hard to understand why a woman would not leave a man who physically injured her, and while Steiner isn't completely clear about her reasons (she does say violence doesn't happen on a first date, but instead when you're already "trapped" in a relationship), it does seem that she has learned from her experience:

I hope so much that other women won't ignore the red flags like I did. When he choked me during sex, I ignored it. His early possessiveness, I ignored it. I didn't realize that things would get much worse… Love can't fix a violent person. The only thing you can do is leave.

The Shadow Of Shame [Newsweek]

Law enforcement sources tell TMZ that they try and book a suspect for the most serious crime they can be charged with. While domestic abuse is punishable by up to four years in prison, a suspect found guilty of making criminal threats will do up to nine years. Of course, it's up to the D.A. to file any additional charges. (And a jury must find him guilty.) In addition, the breaking news is that Chris Brown may have used a "deadly weapon" in the assault.

This high-profile situation raises so many questions:

• Will Rihanna break up with him? You might think think that a 911 call and a trip to the hospital would immediately mean that a relationship is over. But Diane Lane's husband, Josh Brolin, was arrested for spousal battery in 2004. She declined to press charges, however, and they remain married. And plenty of women, all over the world, stay in physically or emotionally abusive relationships.
• Will Chris Brown's career suffer? The singer has a deal with Wrigley's gum and has been pursuing acting; he was in StompThe Yard and on an episode of the The O.C and was supposed to star in a basketball film called Phenom. Do people support a man who hits women? Miles Davis sold a lot of albums. Axl Rose was accused of abuse by both Stephanie Seymour and ex-wife Erin Everly.
• What if Rihanna doesn't break up with Chris Brown? What would happen to her? Her well-being, her carefully-managed image via Jay-Z and the people at Def Jam; her ads for Gucci and CoverGirl cosmetics? Rihanna — and her management — were always reluctant to admit that the star was dating Chris Brown; how will they handle commenting on this incident to the public, should she choose to stay with him? Or will they "encourage" her to stop seeing him?

One thing is clear: Whether or not he is found guilty, Chris Brown has some issues he needs to deal with. In 2007, he talked to Giant magazine about his abusive stepfather:

Like the day an 11-year-old Brown made a promise to his mother. He vowed that he would go to jail by age 15 for killing his abusive stepfather. "I just want you to know that I love you," he told her. "But I'm gonna take a baseball bat one day while you at work, and I'm gonna kill him." Brown's parents had separated when he was seven. When his mother remarried, she moved her son and his new stepfather to a trailer park. Then his stepfather shot himself in the head. The shot went straight through the eyes. He survived the suicide attempt but was permanently blinded.

"When you're blind, your senses are heightened, like your smell, hearing, your sense of touch," Brown explains. "You can move and maneuver around your sight. But he used to hit my mom….He made me terrified all the time, terrified like I had to pee on myself. I remember one night he made her nose bleed. I was crying and thinking, ‘I'm just gonna go crazy on him one day…' I hate him to this day."

Chris Brown Could Do Nine Years in Prison [TMZ]
Chris Brown Allegedly Attacks Rihanna, Own Career With 'Deadly Weapon' [Defamer]
EXCLUSIVE: Is Chris Brown Violent? [Giant]

Larry Fitzgerald, after all, was one of the feel-good stories of the game. There was a plenty of focus on his personal life — mostly his relationship with his father, a veteran sports writer who said he would refuse to cheer for his son from the press box, on principle. So sweet!

What barely got any mention was that the mother of Fitzgerald's child, former Raiders cheerleader Angela Nazario, has accused him of domestic abuse, and filed for an order of protection against him. Nazario claimed that, during an altercation where she "may have hit [Fitzgerald] in the face," he retaliated and "grabbed me by my hair with both hands on the back of my head very very hard and tossed me across the room." According to Nazario, she hit her head on their marble floor and lost "chunks of her hair“ in the assault.

Then there's Holmes (pictured), The Philadelphia Inquirer's "man of the hour", whose troubles hail from further back. In 2006 Holmes' girlfriend, Lashae Boone, told police Holmes became angry and started "choking [her], throwing her to the ground ... and slamming her into a door." The charges were later dropped and Holmes agreed to go into a treatment center. "It doesn't mean anger-management classes," he told the press. "It just means I needed someone else to talk with about all the situations and to get an understanding of what was going on."

Dropped charges are dropped charges. And I'm not one to call for a citizen conviction of this guys based on unproven allegations. But, given the amount of press coverage and hero worship heaped on these football stars, doesn't the fact that they both have faced abuse allegations seem worth discussing, beyond Weintraub's aside that, "Perhaps Holmes can stop off for counseling on the way to Disneyland?"

The QB That Saved Pittsburgh [Slate]